I Am The Many
by Organism
Summary: In the wake of Voldemort's attack, Harry's magic was stolen in an attempt to save his twin Micah's, leaving him effectively a Squib. All that remains is a meager but unique tendril of magic that manifests itself in an...interesting way.


_Disclaimer_: I do not own Harry Potter. All characters, settings, and other story elements from the Harry Potter franchise belong to J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., Bloomsbury, and Scholastic. Copyright infringement is not intended and I make no money from posting this story.

This is the first story I've posted online. I invite you to post any comments or criticism, although non-constructive insults and flames will be ignored so it's not really worth your time to post them.

The original Harry-has-a-twin-and-his-parents-sacrificed-his-magic-to-save-his-brother's plot was taken with permission from the fabulous dhulli's intriguing story _Squib_. If you see any other elements in this story that you recognize as your own or someone else's, please let me know.

NOTE: The prologue has been modified (again). Only a few minor changes have been made to most of it, but I added two short scenes. If you just want to read those, begin at "Ah, the wondrous adventuresome reconnoiter" which I'm sorry to say is not nearly as interesting as it might sound.

The Harry I intend to center this story around undergoes a lot of rapid internal changes and gains an exponentially vast amount of knowledge and skills in a short period of time. This kind of puts it inherently beyond my writing ability; I'm simply not that well-read, well-versed in any field of any kind, academic or otherwise, and have minimal life experience. But here I am taking a stab at it nonetheless, because honestly, it's fanfiction.

another NOTE: I'm interested a beta, or just someone to talk to about where I'm going with my plot, but I have basically actual zero connections in any fanfiction community. Although I have to admit the nice people on the DLP forums scare the crap out of me. If you'd like to recommend someone or volunteer yourself, I'd really appreciate it.

sorry about all these NOTEs: This will not be Severitus. There will not, for the _most_ part, be slash like HP/DM or HP/SS. Much as I, male-on-male obsessed fangirl that I am, enjoy those types of fics, I'm not about to write them. Too freaking embarrassing. This Harry's a confused and curious young fellow and I may or may not allow him to do some experimenting, but any sort of ultimate pairing for him will be het. I make no promises for side characters. I will provide specific warnings for any graphic scenes. There will be violence eventually. There will also be naughty language.

Enjoy.

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue: Degrees<strong>

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

I lay stretched out on my wrinkled, slightly smelly mattress in my groaning, moth-eaten attic and wondered that gladness can be felt as a palpable creature. Like water flowing down your throat and a cool cavity of liquid filling space deep in your chest. Fierce joy is like hugging yourself very tightly, and squeezing intermittently as hard as you can. On the other hand, it's also quite calming. Like you're letting the dam of your heart open up and release all that tension, that stress and worry out like a big tidal wave that sweeps out of your pores, leaving nothing but a sense of relieved relaxation and a fierce, delighted joy.

These emotions were _not _what I was feeling now.

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. We were fast friends by now, me and the ceiling. I knew its splintery rafters and shadowy wood boards well. Living in the attic for the past three years gets you pretty acquainted with the triangular roofbelly.

Oh, it had come at first, that chest-clenching joy and ripple of relief, warm and fast, and for a few minutes, all had been shimmery rainbows and butterflies in the world of Harry Potter. When you've worried your whole life that you are incompetent—_inadequate_—the realization that there might yet be hope for you is, well, a tidal wave of relieved joy. It's little fairies dancing around with daisies in their hair and sprinkling glitter through the flower fields. But of course, once you remember that those poppy fields might not be quite what they seem, the water tends to settle down pretty quickly.

Reaching across my mattress, I reverently lifted a sheet of parchment. Already the edges were creased, and the smudges of fingerprints were visible. Frowning slightly, I used the edge of my linen sheet to try and rub the smudge off, and sighed when it stayed stubbornly. I should keep my hands cleaner. Or wear gloves when handling this piece of parchment. It was an important letter, after all. Even if I knew it by heart at this point.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

I had read it about nine times now. With a bit of effort, I'd probably be able to recite it word for word. Tracing the words with my finger, which luckily didn't smudge at all, I reread it again. And again. Even now, hours after the plain brown owl had flown through the window and dropped it on my shoulder, I kept asking myself if I had really received it, and answering myself, _Yes._

_Dear Mr. Potter...you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._ You have been accepted, Mr. Potter. You have been accepted. You are _going_.

You are going to the premier school of magic in England.

I buried my face in my pillow and laughed my brains out.

Hogwarts does not care that I have performed only the slimmest bits of what may or may not have been accidental magic. Hogwarts does not care that my family considers me barely worth looking at. Hogwarts does not care that I am maybe not worth looking at at all.

_You have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

I closed my eyes into the pillow's cool darkness and nearly inhaled a mouthful of pillow as I howled with relieved laughter.

One more time. "You are going to Hogwarts, Mr. Potter," my voice croaked, muffled.

_You have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

Even if the water is still now, that tidal wave still cleaned out my heart of worry.

_You have been accepted_.

Hell yes I've been accepted.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

But of course those words are ultimately a lie. Being accepted to Hogwarts is one thing. Even if Hogwarts apparently doesn't mind if you only have a tiny, eensy little bit of magic, as long as you _have_ it, the fact that it's only a little bit does matter to some people. A lot of people, actually.

Especially, it seems, to the people whom it should matter the least.

"Oh, my little Mikey-Wikey, I can't believe it," Mum gobbled like a turkey, clutching my brother like he was about to sprout wings and flutter off to school forever without warning. "Hogwarts, can you believe it, James? Can you believe it, Micah? I can't believe it. You're going to school, honey!"

I took a sip of my steaming hot tea and cleared my throat slightly.

"Yeah, Mum, I know," Micah says, prying himself away and grinning madly, all gleaming white teeth scary like a picture of a scary purple cat I'd seen once. "It's crazy, isn't it? I'm so excited, I'm _so_ excited, I'm gonna pull so many damn pranks when I get there Snivellus won't know what hit him—"

"Mikey!" Mum turns from her smothering mothering, on the edge of tragic sobs, to a draconian disciplinarian in the blink of an eye. "First of all, I don't care how excited you are, don't use that language!"

"Bloody shit," I cursed under my breath, having drank a bit too much tea and scalding the taste buds on the tip of my tongue.

"Not in front of Mum, at least, Mikes," Dad piped up from the kitchen table with his trademark impish grin.

"Shut your mouth, James," snapped Mum without skipping a beat. "Don't use it, _ever_, Mikey, if you do it around other people you'll start doing it around everyone. Secondly, do not call Professor Snape 'Snivellus!' It's incredibly disrespectful—"

"Not in front of Snivelly, at least," Dad added cheerily, peering with a bit more caution around the Daily Prophet.

"Shut _up_, James!" Nostrils at full-flare, Mum whirled back on Micah, who cringed away a tad. Mum sighed and said, "And Micah, I _swear_, Micah, you had better not be caught pranking Professor Snape."

Micah waggled his eyebrows at Dad, who winked back. Mum had clearly been expecting Dad to pipe in yet again, and when he didn't actually say anything, she glowered at his wink, then deflated.

It was honestly like watching a cartoon on the Muggle telly.

"Yes, well...don't get caught, anyway," she groused, nonetheless running her hands lovingly through Micah's hair.

"I concur," Dad said, raising his mug of tea. "Micah, if you get _caught_, if we hear so much as a _hint_ that you've been pranking Snivellus, why, we'll beat you to within an inch of your life, son."

"James!" Mum said through gritted teeth, ire once more raised. "Don't even _say_ things like that!"

Micah patted her shoulder. "S'alright, Mum, I can take Dad, or even the two of you. I'd just Transfigure Dad into a toad or something when I learn how to do it from McGonagall."

Dad beamed. "That's the spirit, Mikey!"

"Professor McGonagall, Mikey," said Mum, at this point rolling her eyes.

Smiling, Micah obediently repeated, "Professor McGonagall," then caught my eye across the table. My lips tightened involuntarily as my brother's smile widened. "Right Harry?" he asked. "We'll learn plenty of stuff at Hogwarts, and we'll be Transfiguring stuff in no time. Dad doesn't stand a chance, does he?"

"Less of a chance than snow at the hearth," I agreed promptly. Mum and Dad were looking at me now, still smiling. I looked at Dad, and wondered if it was my imagination that his hazel eyes had a fixed look to them, like he had tried to freeze the smile in them when looking at Mikey so that it would stay in place when he looked at me. "In front of a big, blazing fire," I continued, staring him in the eyes. "Or like...a snowball in hell."

Dad's fixed expression looked satisfyingly uncertain at that. "Harry, you heard what I told Mikey," said Mum, politely. As if she was speaking to her son's friend, rather than her son. A friend she didn't approve of. "Don't curse."

"Hell's a place, not a curse," I said.

"Nonetheless." Mum smiled tightly. "That's only in Muggle literature, and it's carried over as a curse in the Wizarding World. Don't say it, please. The professors at Hogwarts won't like it at all."

I resisted narrowing my eyes. _Now that we know for sure you're in the Wizarding World, our world, rather than the Muggle._ "Sure thing. Won't do."

She paused. Dad broke in, "Congratulations, by the way, Harry. We know you were a little worried about whether or not you'd get your letter."

I didn't resist narrowing my eyes. "Thanks evermuch."

The trademark impish grin was noticeably absent. "Look, I'm just pointing out. You didn't really show magic, but now we know for sure—"

"I've levitated stuff before," I pointed out coldly.

Mum and Dad exchanged a look, while Micah said, "We still don't know if that was you, Harry. I was shaking the bookcase with my accidental magic—"

I said, "The book I wanted came straight to me—"

"And I pulled a bunch of books from the top shelf. One landed near you, and you started looking through it. Besides, it was when we were seven, and it was only the once."

Gripping the edge of the table, I kept my gaze even and glare-free. _Magical Manatee's Merry Misadventures_ had flown directly to my hands; it had _not_ landed beside me. "There was the candle incident when I set the curtain on fire—"

"You had kicked the table in a fit of temper," Mum pointed out, not ungently. "A fallen over candle is a bit different from a spontaneous burst of magical fire."

I looked down at a knot in the wooden table, and pushed the edge of my mug against it. A bit of hot tea splashed out the side, but it was cooler by now. I said nothing.

"Either way, Hogwarts accepted you," Dad said, breaking the brief silence a little too loudly, with a little too much jollity. "You both'll learn to turn your parents into toads yet." He and Micah gave near-identical snorts of laughter, and Mum chuckled, rolling her eyes. I forced a smile.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

The month between receiving our letters and getting on the train was unremarkable. It was August, and just my luck—hot and muggy to the point of bizarre for a summer in South West England. I stayed in the attic most of the time, which would have been a terrible idea if I hadn't wheeled Uncle Remus into weaving a semi-permenant cooling charm on the floorboards and into the walls and rafters. I had tried to get Mum to do it first, a year ago when I was ten, since she was one of the English Ministry of Magic's most prominent Charm Threaders.

Snowball in hell.

"I still don't understand why you wanted to move into the attic at all, Harry," she said with a shake of her head, biting back what looked like a mixture of disappointment and irritation. I could have sympathized, If I hadn't been trying to force down my own (irrational, I told myself, irrational) feeling of shame, and also a fair bit of resentment. As far as I was concerned, it was her fault, her and Dad and of course _Micah's_, that I wanted to move into the attic in the first place.

"I keep _saying_, I _like_ it there," I insisted. Mum frowned lightly at me.

They had wanted to me to move out of the room I shared with Micah into the old storage room, in which the Potter family piled books none of us read and old board games and ruined sports equipment and other miscellaneous items that no one quite knew what to do with.

It's not like I minded the chance get away from Micah. The privacy would have been worth my own room, and even a smaller room would have taken up less elbow space for me than a spacier one containing Micah's inflated ego. No, what got me was the unspoken, unquestioned notion that _I _would be the one to move out. It was critical that Micah not be upset by the change. No, of course Harry would switch rooms, and leave the bigger one, the bedroom that had always been the two of theirs, to his brother. My wonderful, perfect Boy Who Lived brother. No matter that Harry was older. No matter that he hadn't actually had any say in there having been a change at all.

And the purpose of the little room itself was in no way lost on me, either.

But maybe I'm just bitter. I tend blow things out of proportion, apparently.

"Is it because you're angry about having to move out?" Dad had looked honestly bewildered, pushing hair off his creased forehead and resting one hand on his hip.

"Gee, of course I'm not pissed, _Dad_," I said. "Honest. I just like the attic, that's all."

"It's full of cobwebs," he pointed out dryly.

"I'll dust 'em off."

"Not to mention we're storing stuff up there."

I bit down on a snap. The snap bit back. "Merlin, Dad, we have a _storage room_, remember? That's where you wanted to to dump me in the first place?"

He crossed his arms and frowned at me. "We're not _dumping_ you anywhere. Don't ever take that tone, you hear me?"

"Yeah, I've got two ears, both functional. You've two storage spaces—both functional. Can I at least pick which one you dump me in, and just move the stuff to the other?"

"Not if you continue to speak to me that way," said Dad sharply. I gnashed my teeth, angry at him, also angry at myself. Now was obviously not the moment for backtalk. "Sorry, Dad. I just...I don't know, I suppose I'm a bit weirded out by the change."

Dad nodded, his gaze softening into something more understanding. From the other side of the room, where Micah was setting up a goblins verses wizards model war on a plush circle rug, my brother said, "Merlin's beard, Harry, it's not like you're moving to another country. You're just going to the storage room."

I flicked my eyes back to Dad. "The attic, not the storage room."

Dad scowled. "Harry, it's just...so...different from a regular room. I don't like the idea of you sleeping in...an attic. It's so much...farther from the rest of the house."

I raised my eyebrows sarcastically. "What, are the Lethifolds gonna _get me _up there?"

"_Harry_," Dad snapped, and I mumbled an apology. He shook his head impatiently. "It's just...the attic, Harry. _Really_? It's a very strange room to actually _live_ in. People use it for keeping boxes of albums in, old holiday cards that you feel bad about throwing out, magazines that you don't know what to do with..."

"And you don't put stuff like that in the storage room?" I snapped.

"It's more of an ordinary room than the attic, at least."

"I don't care if it's ordinary, it's smaller. The attic is ten times less cramped."

Dad rolled his eyes impatiently, as if size was a trivial matter when deciding on the room where I'd be living for the next few years—full time, since I probably wasn't going to Hogwarts. I tightened my lips at the thought. "Your mother or I can expand it for you," he said brusquely.

I paused. Not a bad offer. Nice move, Dad. But I narrowed my eyes anyway—at this point in the argument, I had my principles of obstinacy to consider, not to mention pride and spite. "I'd still rather the attic."

Dad threw up his hands. "Fine!" he said loudly. "You know what? You can have the damn attic. But you're clearing out the boxes and you're cleaning it."

"Fine," I bit out, unable to prevent the contempt even though I should be delighted. "Thanks. I'll do that."

Dad glared at me. "Micah, don't help your brother," he ordered. "He wants the attic, he gets it ready himself. _If_ he just wanted the storage room, which would have been much easier, your mother and I would have helped him, but he wants to do it himself, apparently."

Micah snorted as he watched a miniature wizard riding a hippogryph dive-bomb one of the goblins. "No worries there, Dad, I'm not helping him. I don't care what he does."

Dad adjusted his box-frame glasses and scowled at me again. "Good. I'll go tell your mother that you're moving upstairs." He swept out of the room.

I started to follow him. "Hey, pillock," Micah called out. I jumped in surprise as a goblin figurine hit me in the back of the neck, and fell to the floor, flailing its arms and squalling furiously. Stooping to grab it, I hurled the thing back at Micah, who grunted as it pelted him in the forehead. Suppressing a chuckle of satisfaction, I turned around to open the door when Micah said, "Merlin's beard. Look, I just wanted to say you better have your crap out of the room by Friday. And don't touch my stuff, especially not my Cleansweep or my stuffed animals. Or my animated figures. Or my posters. Or anything else. Got it?"

I gave him the Evil Eye. "You can't put a time limit on me, Mikey. It's my room too, until Mum and Dad say it isn't, and it's gonna take me a few days to do the attic first."

"Saturday, then," he said warningly. "And I'll talk to Mum and Dad, don't you worry."

I gritted my teeth, hating him. "Wish they'd made _you_ move out of our room, you dumb fart-head, see how it feels," I spat.

Micah's laugh was the only response that followed me, and really, we both knew it said everything it needed to.

The attic was wonderful. I liked the pitter patter of rain, with only the roof of one room separating it from me; it made me feel cozy and dry. The cold of winter had been easily remedied by Mum's expert homewarming charms, which drifted steadily up to heat the entire house, and were supplemented by my thick nest of blankets. The glass windows on either side of the triangular prism-shaped attic let in plenty of natural light, although I did have to wonder why someone put windows in an attic in the first place.

The spring was even easier; cool and breezy, it was perfect attic weather, although a little cool at night with the warming charms turned down. It was the first few weeks of June that year that hit me hard. I didn't know about heat's tendency to rise and swell in the attic like the ballooning of a giant fireshroom. After several days of wallowing in my pride, not to mention a boiling, humid sort of heat that made sweat drip copiously from every pore in my body and soak my hair and clothes and sheets, I asked Mum to cast a cooling charm. I figured she'd have gotten over my decision after more than half a year of me living there.

No such luck.

"I still don't understand why you wanted to move there in the first place."

"Why don't you just move to the storage room? It'll be the same temperature as the rest of the house."

"No, and that's final. You need to accept the consequences of your actions. If you're going to pick the attic as your—room, then you're going to deal with everything that comes with it. If you want to be cooler in the summer, buy a Harkin's Heat Banisher."

_That would have been easier if I didn't get about a third the allowance Micah does. _"They're way too expensive!"

"Then move to the old storage room, Harry."

I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms. "Screw you!"

For two weeks after that, I was only allowed to leave the sweltering attic for meals, company, and bathroom trips. Mum secretly loved the irony, I'm sure. An hour or two after noon, the hottest part of the day, I often felt like my brain was going to pound its way out of my skull and disgorge itself all over the walls. Wandering a heat-induzed haze, I found myself enjoying the mental image of my family lamenting their actions as they scraped bits of my brain off the walls.

Lucky for me, this year was easier. Remus reluctantly agreed to do it, after I begged and wheedled and argued that Mum and Dad were being way too strict and if I asked Mum again this year to do it she would definitely say no again but it was so, _so_ hot in the attic even though I loved everything else about and it's not like it affects anyone else in the house so obviously Mum and Dad are being unreasonable anyway and it's just one little cooling charm and _please_, Uncle Remus, because I love you?

So he and I sneaked up to the attic and a mere half-hour later, it was cool as an apple orchid in late autumn. For some reason it also had the faint, lingering smell of one, which I immediately decided went perfectly with the scent of slightly aging, musty wood.

"Thank you, Uncle Remy," I said solemnly. "If I had a wand, I would swear an official oath of eternal debt to you on the spot, right here and now."

Remus Lupin smiled, rolled his eyes, ruffled my hair. "Oh, I've no doubt, Harry. Do me a favor and work it off by not letting your parents or brother up here, alright? I don't want your Mum after my blood if she knew that I, well, went against what she wanted. Even if it was last year, and she might not remember..." he trailed off.

"Don't worry, Uncle Remy, nobody but me ever comes up here," I assured him with a snort. Remus sighed and shook his head very slowly.

Uncle Remus hadn't been around when much Micah and I were growing up. For that matter, Uncle Sirius wasn't around at all. We certainly did grow up hearing about our family's two missing friends—Remus ran with a werewolf pack while the Wizengamot alternately loosened and tightened werewolf restriction laws (playing with their hopes (according to an irate Dad) like a Screaming Yoyo on a string). He visited once every two years or so, and increased the frequency to a couple times a month as legal restrictions slowly laxed.

Sirius Black, on the other hand, who's older than Dad by several months and acts younger than Micah, went on what he calls a "whacky-round-the-world vagaventure", which spanned seven years and fifty-two countries. He returned a few weeks after Remus started visiting us twice a week, with "more world wisdom than I know how to get rid of," a set of incredible tattoos, numerous piercings, and "the realization that I've always had a raging hard-on for Remus". (I wasn't eavesdropping on Dad's "welcome-back" Firewhisky session with my uncles, I swear, I was just walking by. For twenty minutes. It's not like I even knew what a hard-on was at the age of nine, anyway, so no harm done.)

Together, Remus and Sirius—but especially Sirius—were about the coolest pair of parents' friends a kid could possibly ask for. Things were just _better_ when they were around, which evened out about by the time we were almost ten to a couple visits a week. I was personally convinced they liked me better than Micah, although unfortunately they were more scrupulously fair about showing no blatant hints of favoritism to me the way Mum and Dad did Micah. They were still all great friends, but there was just something a little awkward about the Potter family when Harry Potter came into the picture, and I could tell neither Remus nor Sirius liked it. I wasn't sure if either of them ever spoken to Mum or Dad about it, but it was pretty clear to me that there was a just that edge of a division, an unspoken tension about embarrassing little probably-Squib Harry, neither as special nor as powerful as Micah, Boy-Who-Shits-Sunshine.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

The Greengrasses were in Sydney, Australia and Boots were touring North America during the last few weeks of July, so Micah and I ended up celebrating our birthday in the second week of August. It was a Hogwarts-themed slumber party sleepover, no parents upstairs in the "dormitory" after ten o'clock unless we set the house on fire. Neville Longbottom's grandmother didn't like the sound of that, and said she would be taking Neville home when everyone went to bed. She complained that even at Hogwarts next month, girls and boys slept separately. Micah rolled his eyes when he heard that. There would be absolutely no sleeping in the same room as girls—they would be in Mum and Dad's room, and the boys in Micah's (formerly Micah's and mine) room. Girls were gross and giggly; they talked too much and too loudly and put too much stuff in their hair.

"We'd be up all night listening to the stupid buggers," Micah groused to Ron Weasley as the last of the guests were arriving. Unfortunately for him, he did this in front of Daphne Greengrass, who promptly kicked him as hard as she could in the shin, birthday be damned. Micah hopped on one foot and howled, and for the next hour it was a boys-verses-girls game of Petrified Tag, at which the girls were soundly trounced since Micah had invited mostly boys to "our" birthday.

"That's not bloody fair!" Hannah Abbott bellowed, yellow pigtails all a-quiver. "Why in Merlin's name did you invite so many stupid boys, Micah? Of course you guys won!"

"We won because boys are better than girls," bragged Ernie Macmillan.

"Yeah, we're faster," added Terry Boot. "Boys are just naturally faster and stronger than girls, it's been proven."

"Maybe by your imagination, Terrible Terry!" spat Ginny Weasley, who had apparently thrown a fit at the mention of her brother Ron going to the Potters' birthday without her. "Morgana, there's nine of you and five of us!"

"And you've got Anthony and, and Harry," grumbled Padma Patil, "they're faster than anybody here."

Anthony Goldstein and I both grinned. It was true that we'd "petrified" more girls than all the other boys put together. My expression faded slightly, though, as the girls glowered at Andy, specifically not looking at me, and the other boys pounded him on the back, sending one or two stiff nods in my direction. Apparently it didn't _really _matter that I had petrified the girls six times, Andy four, and everyone else no more than two. It only mattered that your parents told to be nice to the poor Squib, but you don't need to really include him—not only is he just _not that important_, it can be detrimental to one's own status if spotted hanging out with Squibs.

Neville Longbottom patted my shoulder. I gave a him a shaky smile, hoping I didn't look too sour. If anyone could sympathize with me, it was Neville, but he had experienced a bout of undeniable accidental magic recently—his Gran and Great-Uncle were even more pushy about trying to get him to show some than Mum and Dad were for me. Even though Neville was probably the nicest boy I had ever met, the jealousy somehow struck me nearly as bad as I often envied Micah.

"Bloody blighters," I muttered out of the corner of my mouth, and Neville laughed. _Well, whatever_, I thought, watching Micah and Ron tease the girls about being sore losers, and Andy Goldstein puff up his chest like Micah's old stuffed dragon. A letter is a letter, and even if I wasn't a strong wizard, even if I was the weakest on the planet, even if I had never showed a hint of magic in my life—I was still going to Hogwarts.

"You and Mikey both got letters, didn't you?" asked Neville, as if he'd read my mind. "I got mine a week ago, on my birthday."

"So did we," I agreed, pulling up blades of grass absently. "A couple days before your birthday, right?"

"Yup," said Neville. "Same as you guys, I suppose."

I pulled up a large clump by accident, and Neville frowned at me. "Don't kill the grass, Harry," he scolded gently. I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry." I patted it back down carefully. "What did you do for your birthday, anyway? I know we had to wait for everybody to come back from vacation, but it could've been a three-way party." I waved my hand around generally.

Neville raised his eyebrows. He glanced over at Micah, who had actually started beating his chest in a parody of Tykslar the Wizard-Ape, and closed his eyes as if embarrassed for my brother. "I think I'll pass."

I snorted laughter. "What, and miss everyone fawning over Magnificent Mikey's accomplishment of being born better than you?"

Neville glanced at me with an uncertain smile, and I rolled my eyes and stuck out my tongue. "Never mind," I muttered. "So did you just have a small party, or what?"

"Just me and Uncle Algie and Gran," he said quietly, rolling a stick between his fingers.

I felt a stab of shame. "Sorry."

"Nothing you did, Harry."

The evening was moist, warm, and gray, and though the grass felt damp no rain had fallen yet. We watched as the others—conspicuously ignoring Neville and me—decided amongst themselves to troop to the small brook that ran along the side of the two-acre Potter property, intending to catch Torpid Tadpoles and skip stones. Neville got up and looked at me, clearly planning to follow them. His Gran didn't let him out much, and when he did get the chance he always wanted to follow what everyone else was doing. Even though he usually trailed along after them, not saying much. Not being spoken to, except when someone had to talk to him or took pity on the maybe-Squib.

Me? I just stuck out my tongue (mentally) and walked the other way when it was made clear that I had overstayed my too-generous welcome.

"Not coming?"

I looked up at him and shook my head, hugging my knees loosely. Neville shrugged and trudged after them, and I got up and went into the house.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

"Ah, the wondrous adventuresome reconnoiter, dashing through the dangerous wilds of Solitary Exploding Snap! Braving the perilous dangers of card-gaming all by his lonesome!"

"Ugh_._ Hi, Uncle Siri," I said without looking up.

"That's Uncle Sir to you, m'boy," Sirius Black said, wagging a finger at me.

"Sure, Uncle Siri."

Sirius raised himself into the attic by his arms and scooted towards me in a crab-like squat. He settled down next my floor mattress, watching as I lay on my stomach and dealt through the temperamental Exploding Snap deck. I was an absolute master at Solitary Snap, considering I often resorted to the game when I was feeling lonely or left out.

"Mind if I join in?"

"Nope." I dealt him his share of cards. He was beating the pants off of me within moments. I had plenty of practice with the solitary version. With others? Not so much. I watched Sirius' arm tattoos shimmer as he played. The left forearm had a Grim, his Animagus form, bounding up and down the length of it, surrounded by solid black interspersed with designs and symbols that moved around the dog.

"So the other kids are all boring idiots, huh?" Sirius said after as while.

"Stupid boring douchebag idiots," I corrected him.

Sirius nodded wisely. "Ah, I see. What are they doing? I thought you all were playing Petrified Tag before."

"We won 'cause the girls suck."

"No chance of mixing up the teams?"

I dignified that with a scornful snort.

"Gotcha. Although I had the impression that you caught up to them pretty easily—especially that Hannah Abbott."

I looked up at him through narrowed eyes, scowling when he winked at me. "I just wanted to win, you tosser."

"Well excuse _me_. And how many times did you win _her_?"

My mouth dropped open_._ "Ew. Merlin's beard, Uncle Siri, I don't _like_ her or anything, if that's what you're saying!" _...Two out of six._ I wrinkled my nose. "She's a girl. _Yuck_."

"I know what you mean," he agreed solemnly. "Too bad you didn't want to mix up the teams, eh?"

I considered that a moment, then pretended to gag. "Ew, Siri, that's even grosser!"

"Ah, the folly of youth," Sirius mourned, and ruffled my hair with one heavily inked hand, which I failed to knock away. "In but a few short years, my budding Casanova, you'll be following in my philandering footsteps, collecting the notches in your wand, scorching the innocent mind of your pure young nephew—"

"You're not actually my uncle," I pointed out.

Sirius waved a dismissive hand. "Bah!"

There was another few minutes of silence and my recurring defeats.

"What's Casanova and philandering?" I asked after another few minutes.

He coughed into his hand. "Um, ask Uncle Remy."

"I'm asking you."

"Uh well, I actually don't know what they mean, Harry."

I grunted and rolled my eyes. "Whatever. I _bet_ you don't."

Sirius clucked his tongue. "My, my, the sulky teenagers are just getting younger every year, aren't they?"

I sat back away from the cards and hugged my knees to my chest, scowling. He was trouncing me. It was probably because I was pissed and couldn't concentrate, I told myself. "Not like Hannah Abbot's ever gonna like me, anyway. Not like _anyone's_ ever gonna like me."

Sirius' eyes softened. "Hey kid, that's not true."

"Nobody here likes me. It's supposed to be my birthday party, too, but it's not. It's just Micah's."

Sirius put a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at his face, watching his piercings—nose stub, eyebrow bar, lip ring—glint in the light of the melting candle next to my mattress. Mum and Ms. Jones, her best friend—and all of Mum's girlfriends, actually—hated Sirius' various body art. Micah and I, along with everyone our age, thought it was about the neatest thing in the world. "Maybe that's because you're up here playing Exploding Snap while they're all doing who-knows-what."

"I was playing tag before. Nobody _cared_ that I petrified two more girls than Anthony Golstein. They all think I'm just a stupid Squib."

"What about Neville?"

I glared at him. "They think that about him, too, but he just wants to follow them around anyway. Besides, it's not like I really even know Neville that well." _And it's not _fair _that he's the only person who wants to talk to me—just because he knows what it's like..._

Sirius sighed. "I ever tell you about my family?"

"You mean your parents and Regulus? Yeah." I sat up, interested nonetheless.

Sirius chuckled. "I know about the whole favored little brother thing," he confessed, although I noted he did shoot a glance at the attic trapdoor as if to make sure no one was coming through. "And Harry, really, it _will_ get better. I know feel like Lily and James don't pay attention to you now, like everybody just fawns over Mikey—"

"Are you saying they _don't_?"

"Did _I_ say that?"

I shook my head, grudgingly.

"At Hogwarts, there will be more kids your age, and kids older than you who aren't quite so impressed by the great Boy-Who-Lived. You'll find people who like you, just _you_, Harry."

I shook my head. "That's not true. Nobody likes a Squib. Your whole family didn't think you were _weak_."

"Believe me, my parents thought Regulus was the cat's meow compared with me," Sirius said dryly. "And they certainly didn't like me, to say the least. They were...well, you know the general gist." He paused, then went on, "Besides, you got your letter, didn't you? You can't be a Squib. And Lily and James...they're trying, Harry. I agree they're not, well, very good at it, but they don't think you're weak or pathetic. They do love you, and they are trying."

My lips twisted into something mean, and I looked down before Sirius could see it. "It almost makes it worse that they have to _try_," I said, my voice small in the large attic.

Sirius sighed again. "I know, kid. Trust me that things will get better. I found my place and you'll find yours, no matter how hard it seems right now." He brightened. "Friends are life's apology for family, you know."

I had a second to consider that before yelling drifted up from downstairs. "Hey, everyone! Gifts! Cake! Come on in, everybo—_MICAH POTTER, YOU DROP THAT GNOME THIS INSTANT!_"

Sirius jumped as Mum's distant voice echoed into the attic from the open trapdoor. "Ooh, interesting echo. Does it always sound like that up here?"

"Merh," I said grumpily. I considered for a moment just refusing to come down—would people even notice my absence?—but figured it would be embarrassing if they did, and Sirius would definitely make me go anyway.

Might as well get this bloody farce over with.

OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

A few hours later, I was back in our old room. I traced the edge of my inflated mattress. It breathed rhythmically, barely audible under the fortissimo snores of Ron Weasley and Zacharias Smith. There were a couple different settings that were supposed to help you doze off—soft breathing, seasickness, dragon-riding, water simulation, and so on. I found most of them annoying when I was trying to actually get to sleep, but they were fun to just lie on.

The party had gone pretty much as I expected it to—people hovered around Guess-Who, eager for him to "Open mine first, Micah!", and I got the "afterthought gifts." Mostly adventure books and such, since all anyone seemed to know about me was that I liked to read. Not necessarily _what_ I liked to read, but, well, free stuff. If it took money off the hands of snobs like the Macmillans, then I was all for it.

Still, Sirius and Remus had gotten me an incredible magic Neocube made by some witch in Germany that took on the visual properties of whatever you molded it into. When I shaped it into the rough form of a phoenix, for example, it turned red and gold and radiated flames. Even Mum and Dad came up with a real Auror's Sneakoscope, which was actually decent of them—those things were fairly expensive. Reward for receiving a letter, perhaps?

I sighed and sat up, glancing down at my Muggle wristwatch. One-thirty in the morning. I wasn't tired at all. Tapping the edge of the mattress twice with my fingers and feeling it still beneath me, I sat up and slipped onto the floor, gabbing a pair of socks. Mum had expanded Micah's bed so that Ron Weasley and Terry Boot could fit; everyone else had a breathing mattress. I looked down at my younger brother's rising and falling shoulder, and crossed my arms as I pondered.

Micah and I had been pretty close when we were young. A couple times we had tried to trick other people into thinking one of us was the other, or use "twin-speak"—following up the other's sentence as if we shared the same brain, like our former idols Fred and George Weasley did effortlessly—but we could never make it work. We weren't identical or anywhere near the same level of closeness that they had. Even the Patil twins were closer than we had ever been, and despite their similar appearances, their personalities were about as different as it gets.

Micah and I looked different, and acted different. He had been a very sweet boy when he was younger, rather like Neville was now, actually. But the more Mum and Dad doted on him, the more people exclaimed over the faint red lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, exclaimed over what a handsome, study young man he was, Micah became...navel-gazing, I suppose. It made me really sad at times, because although we had fought more often than conspired at ages six and seven, we were still brothers. Perpetually annoyed at one another, pushing and shoving and glaring—but we were family. Twins. We went on adventures to dig up worms, vied to elicit the worst insults from the jarvey family that moved under the old logs in the backyard, and foisted de-gnoming responsibilities on one another. It was a world where we were equal. There was no tension about magical prowess or celebrity status, only the quarrelsome antics of two aggressive, truculent brothers.

When we were about eight, I noticed consciously, for the first time, what Micah was...becoming, for lack of a better term. The struggle had moved from equal ground. Maybe it was the biased perceptions of a whiny, jealous child, but everything seemed to shift to Micah's advantage—Mum and Dad, subtle as their favoritism tended to be, seemed to give into what Micah wanted. They didn't exactly ignore me; there was just that god-awful awkwardness. Averted eyes. Silence about my lack of accidental magic contrasting painfully with lavish praise of Micah's, which was apparently stronger and more frequent than most. Our closest wizarding friends, the Weasleys, the Patils, the Greengrass' and Boots, seemed to always gravitate towards Micah. The adults gushed over the powerful brother and dismissed the Squib. Parents' attitudes rubbed off on the kids that were Micah's and my age, and they would range from ignoring me completely, to pitying me, to being downright disdainful.

Looking back, I think hints of these attitudes had been there for years, but increased as time went by and the disparity between Micah's magic and mine increased. The change wasn't sudden, but to me, the realization felt abrupt. Not to mention hurtful. Remus and Sirius, with their unusual but comforting lack of judgement, were still not around at that point, and I cried a lot that first year.

It still pisses me off to think about.

Micah gave a sudden snort, and I jumped out of my thoughts and froze, feeling like I was about to be caught doing something wrong. But Micah just smacked his lips and grumbled a bit, turning his head towards me with a sigh. I observed him carefully. He had pale soft features, and his nose was a perfect replica of Mum's, his hazel eyes just as much a copy of Dad's as my green ones were of Mum's. He had dark brown hair a few shades light than mine, and though no one was as big as Ron "The Ginge" Weasley, who had already passed five feet at age ten, Micah was pretty tall for his age. I was just a shade shorter, but determined to grow if I had to put myself on a bloody rack.

I leaned over Micah, scowling, and studied him. Sure, he was decent enough, but generally a normal kid. If it wasn't for that _magic_ beneath his skin, magic that shook the kitchen cabinets when he was angry and moved heavy furniture, that and that bloody scar, he'd be nothing special.

Micah smacked his lips again, and I pulled away in alarm as his brownish eyes blinked open sleepily. "Huh—'arry?" he said with a massive yawn, rubbing crust out of the corners of his eyes. "Whatcha...doin'?"

"Nothing, Mikey," I whispered, standing up quickly and quietly.

He sat up, still rubbing his eyes, and yawned again. "Harry," he mumbled, reaching out. His hand grabbed the edge of my pajama shirt, and he reeled me in toward the bed, rubbing and yawning all the while. It was easier to run with it than pull away and risk waking a bunch of sleeping boys up, and I found myself being hugged tightly around the waist by my brother, who pushed his nose into my side with a sleepy sigh. "Hiya, Harry," he mumbled into my pajama shirt, then turned around and flopped back on the bed with another startlingly loud sigh.

I stared at my lump of twin, then turned and crept out of the room, careful to avoid Andy Golstein's fingers and Kenny Greengrass' legs.

Outside, the mahogany-paneled hallway was dark and still as death. I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms, wondering why I felt so odd about that. Micah had been still asleep, for all intents and purposes, and it wasn't like he knew what he was doing.

Then I realized that _that_ was partially what bothered me. It was the first time he had hugged me—the first time my _twin brother_ had _touched_ me that I could remember—in over a year. And he was half-asleep at the time. _Merlin and Mordred._

I wondered if it was because I repulsed him. I wondered if he thought I would infect him with my lack of magic, or steal it somehow. There were old rumors about Squibs being contagious and such, but Mum and Dad had said they were codswallop. No one paid attention to them anymore.

If friends are life's apology for family, then life had better be pretty goddamn good and sorry about all this.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you for reading. Sorry about any confusion regarding the update. I hope to get around to posting the first chapter soon, but I'm going to college on the 28th. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, as my great-uncle used to say.


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